The present invention relates to the creation of art using modified and simplified batik techniques.
Traditionally the art of batik consists of melting waxes so that they flow and are applied to a cloth material such as cotton, silk, etc. All areas are thus covered except for what is left xe2x80x9copenxe2x80x9d to receive the specific color desired. This is repeated color by color, using water-based coloring materials.
Various tools and instruments are employed for such controlled wax application, notably an instrument called a tjanting needle, a hand-held device with a front reservoir cup which holds the melted wax, applying it to the working surface of the art or decoration through an end aperture. There are other types of wax-feeding funnel devices as well. These, as well as brushes, have been used especially for applying fine or thin lines of wax for resist purposes, since the concept of the technique is the resist phenomenon of the wax for preventing the water-base coloring materials from penetrating and adhering to the base fabric material or other substrate.
Such water-base coloring materials, e.g. inks, dyes or paints, have been applied by brushing within the areas of exposed material not waxed, with the waxed lines and areas that were previously applied resisting or rejecting the water-base colors to form white, open lines and areas, or such lines and areas of whatever the original base material color was.
Besides brushing in the separate colors within the demarcations created by the waxed application, a further method has been to dip the base material being worked on into a tub, pan or other container of the desired color.
When the next, additional colors are to be applied to those lines and areas which previously had been covered by the wax barrier, it is necessary to remove the earlier applied wax by laying the waxed side down onto some absorbent surface and pressing over the back with a heated iron or the like. This causes the wax areas to melt and be transferred to the underlying absorbent material. Removing the wax in this manner exposes these once-sealed areas for additional new water-base color applications.
All the other areas not intended to be colored must, in turn, be covered with the resist wax applied, as already described, by applying melted wax in the selected pattern, re-dying, and then with subsequent removal of the wax. Some practitioners remove the wax but do not add another color, to retain the white or base color effect.
Many batik artists permit the lines and other larger areas of the work to remain white (or the color of the base material) by allowing the wax to remain in place without heating and removing. This produces an interesting white contour or definition line between the other applied colors, which serves to demarcate the figures, objects or patterns. The final effect is not unlike stained glass leading between each color, except that the batik xe2x80x9cleadingxe2x80x9d is the white of the base.
From the above outline of the batik process, it can be seen that the traditional art of batik is not an easy or rapid one. The appropriate means for heating, wax material, special fabric foundations, tools, containers, space, etc. are basic and necessary. Thus, a simplified system for producing batik-like effects more easily would surely be welcome.
Such a simplified and convenient method has been devised according to the present invention, without potential injuries from the heating requirement and the complete elimination of any awkward, expensive customary tools. Further, there is no need to purchase, store or melt any wax at all according to the present invention.
The method involves placing a wax coated transfer or carrier sheet on a substrate to which it is desired to transfer a wax coating from the transfer or carrier sheet in a particular pattern, followed by creating the pattern by pressing an upper surface of the carrier or transfer sheet with a stylus, without melting the wax, to transfer the wax by pressure to the substrate.